They Forgot Me At The Courthouse On Divorce Day Then Forgot To Tell Me They Got Back Together Novel by Isolde Wren _ Novel




They Forgot Me At The Courthouse On Divorce Day Then Forgot To Tell Me They Got Back Together Chapter 01

The day my parents finalized the divorce, they left me at the courthouse.
When the court clerk called to remind them, they sounded genuinely confused. “We don’t want her. Isn’t that what foster care is for?”
The court placed me with my father, he earned more, so the law decided that was enough. But Dad and my brother Ethan Evans acted like I didn’t exist.
Mom had my sister Chloe Evans to worry about, and that was all she had room for. She never once asked about me.
So I tried harder. Perfect grades, perfect behavior, perfect everything, because maybe, if I were good enough, they’d finally look my way.
Then I saw the photos online. The four of them, Mom, Dad, Ethan, Chloe, on vacation together in Europe, smiling like a real family.
I scrolled through the comments from aunts and uncles I barely knew. [Congratulations on getting back together. So happy for you guys.] They’d remarried. Nobody told me.
Something inside me went cold. They hadn’t rebuilt our family. They’d built a new one, and I wasn’t in it.
…
I stood outside the house, staring at my phone, the blood rushing through my ears so loud I couldn’t think. That photo, the four of them leaning into each other, sunburned and laughing, burned itself into my vision.
Ethan and Chloe got the life I’d been begging for since I was old enough to know what it meant to beg.
My phone buzzed. A text from Dad.
[Lena, come home. Now. There’s something we need to discuss.]
My breath caught. Maybe this was it. Maybe they’d kept quiet about the remarriage because they didn’t want to distract me before finals. Maybe they’d been waiting for the right moment.
I started building the scene in my head, and a smile crept across my face before I could stop it. They’d tell me the news, and then I’d tell them mine, that I’d gotten into a top university.
One piece of good news on top of another. They’d be so proud. I could already see it.
I pressed the excitement down and jogged the whole way home.
The house looked like it had been redone, fresh paint, new furniture. Mom and Dad had put together a big dinner. Ethan and Chloe were already seated at the table, watching me with barely concealed smugness.
Mom looked me over, frowning at the sweat on my face from running. “Shoes off. Don't track dirt on the new rugs.”
I didn’t argue. I never argued.
But when I sat down and saw the table set for four, no plate for me, the familiar hollow opened up in my chest all over again.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a spare plate to serve myself. I took the seat at the far end of the table, and when I looked up, both my parents wore the same businesslike expression.
“Lena, you’re eighteen now. A legal adult.” Dad spoke first. My heart lifted. I leaned forward, waiting for the good news.
His voice didn’t soften. “We have no legal obligation to support you anymore. And we expect you to pay back what we’ve spent raising you.”
The words didn’t fully register at first. “What are you talking about?” My voice came out thin, cracking at the edges.
Mom slid a sheet of paper across the table, both sides covered in her handwriting. Every expense they’d ever incurred raising me, itemized from the day I was born.
Formula. Tuition. School uniforms. Groceries. Utilities. Every cent, accounted for. The total at the bottom read $487,632.17.
Dad clicked his pen and leaned back like he was doing me a favor. “You’re still our kid, so I’ll round it down to four-eighty flat. Just sign the agreement.”
My throat locked shut. I looked sideways at Ethan. He was gnawing on a drumstick, completely unbothered.
He caught me staring and looked up, grease on his lips. “What? Everything they are saying is fair.”
My fingers tightened around my fork until the knuckles went white. They hadn’t called me home because they missed me. They’d called me home to hand me a bill.
I stared at the two people who raised me, and for the first time, their faces looked like strangers’. “How is that fair? Ethan still lives here for free.”
“He’s an adult too, and he can’t even keep a job.” My voice was shaking now, badly. “How is he any more independent than me?”
Mom’s lip curled. “Ethan isn’t like you. He’s going to do something with his life. He's an investment in our future.”
She wasn’t done. “You think books get you anywhere? All that studying, you’re just book-smart. The real world will chew someone like you up and spit you out.”
Something cracked inside me, sharp and clean, right down the center of my chest.
But Mom, if school meant so little, why did you put Chloe in a private school? Why three tutors? Why prep courses?
I fought my way into a top university, and all I am to you is book-smart?
The questions burned in my throat, but I swallowed every one of them.
I picked up the pen and signed the agreement without a word.
“Good.” Mom barely glanced at me. “Leave the house keys by the door before you go. First payment’s due next month.”
She didn’t have to say get out. It was in every syllable.
The last of my strength gave out all at once. I walked out without telling them about the university. There was no point anymore.
I went back to Dad’s apartment, the one I shared with Ethan when he bothered to come home, and sat in the dark.
The tears came, and I let them. After all these years, it still hurt in exactly the same place, his coldness, their indifference, the casual cruelty they never even recognized for what it was.
Not all parents love their children. I knew that now.
So maybe it was time I learned to stop loving mine.

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